Unexplained Glory
by theburiedgirl815
Summary: AU: The Four Horsemen were humans that Lucifer shaped to be his weapons. Here, the Horseman War descends on a small, Colorado town in preparation for the Apocalypse. But what happens when he meets a young woman who starts to awaken his buried humanity?


__"When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come and see!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword." - Revelation 6:3-4  
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Inside his one room apartment on the corner of Cherry and Main, the Horseman War lowered himself onto the single leather armchair in front of the fireplace, where a blazing fire burned behind the grate, the flickering flames casting a glare across the smooth hardwood floor. It provided the only source of light in the room, casting dark shadows into the corners and through the doorways into the other rooms.

Tilting the glass in his hand, he watched as he swirled the dark brown liquor around, the flames reflected in the heavy crystal.

Centuries had passed. Centuries spent taking on different identities, faking his own demise so that no one would think to look for him in a different place once he moved on. He couldn't count the number of different names he had taken on for all those years—though some were most memorable: Erick Von Strussel—the Dutch banker who had fled to Germany to align himself with the Nazi party shortly before World War II, as well as Pierre Chevalier—the French expatriate who had journeyed to Africa prior to the years of conflict and civil war in the rainforest regions. The ones which required him to employ thick foreign accents were some of his favorites, although this may have been simply because there were the ones which had sparked some of the most famous conflicts in the history of human kind.

Fierce battles. Bloodshed. Lives lost. The boom of cannon fire and the acrid, heavy smoke of gunpowder, spreading out over a battlefield littered with the corpses of brave men.

The first World War, or the Great War, as it had been called at the time, had been his favorite by far. The thick smell of desperation, of weak and weary soldiers dying in the mud-filled trenches, limbs swollen with disease, weak from hunger and thirst after weeks of shooting at the unseen enemy, it all gave him a certain morbid satisfaction. To see these young souls, barely men, so desperate to fight for their country, to bring glory and honor on their family's name! Most of them didn't make it home. He made sure of that.

For a relative while, things had been calm. The conflict in the Middle East, scary at first, was now in the back of most people's minds. As many soldiers died, others returned home. The war in Darfur had faded from Western concern almost completely. People simply didn't care that innocent Africans and Iraqi citizens were perishing, that villages were pillaged ruthlessly and women and children raped and slaughtered. The conflict was confined to its own geographic region, beyond the notice of the rest of the world. The Western world, with its money and influence, slept peacefully while thousands, millions died.

Man had gotten smart. More soldiers were returning home than had in the past. Technology was rapidly advancing, and the world was in need of large-scale conflict, of the ultimate battle, though most were not aware of it.

But now, finally, there had been talk. At first whispers, then full-fledged orders from the boss, of change coming soon. The Apocalypse. The End Times. The ultimate destruction of mankind as it stood, the clearing of the plague of man from the once pure Earth. Centuries ago, Lucifer had promised this time would come, that War and his three brothers would all one day play their role in the collapse of man, and now was only the beginning.

A small, satisfied smile spread suddenly across the Horseman's handsome face, and he drained the last swallow from his glass before setting it on the end table next to him, the ice clinking heavily against the crystal.

Clearing his throat as he stood and slipped his hands into the pockets of his black dress pants, he crossed the open room to the window that looked out over the dark pavement of the street below. His reflection met him in the smooth glass; gray-blue eyes focused on the innocent street below, his mouth set in a crooked smile that lifted his cheek slightly, black hair streaked with gray, the look of a polished, successful, intelligent businessman. He would be known as Roger Casey now, a solitary, quiet accountant from somewhere out West. This was the story he had prepared for anyone who might ask.

As he watched, two men exited the small pub across the street, staggering with an obvious drunkenness. They approached the street corner and stopped, facing each other in such a way that made it apparent they were involved in a heated discussion.

The smile on the Horseman's face grew, further lifting up the corner of his mouth, as he removed his right hand from his pocket. On one finger, a solid gold ring glinted in the firelight, the brightness reflected in the window before him. It was this ring, this small, seemingly insignificant piece of metal, that was responsible for the greatest conflicts on the face of the Earth, for the countless lives lost in battle, for the endless amounts of blood that soaked into the dark soil of the planet.

This ring had brought misery and suffering to the merciless race of man for decades and centuries past.

Eyes focused on the scene before him, War brought his hand to rest on the windowsill, absentmindedly using his thumb to roll over the smooth gold of his ring. Once, twice, three times he felt the cold surface of this harbinger of conflict under his finger, before pressing against it, turning it ever so slightly to the left.

The men on the street below felt a swift, unseasonably warm breeze drift suddenly down the street, stopping their discussion midsentence, disturbing the leaves scattered across the sidewalks, sending the flyers hanging on the pub window into the air. Then, there was a brief pause, a sudden stillness, which, rather than relieve, sent a chill down both of their spines simultaneously, a strange sensation comparable to the sudden goosebumps said to arrive from someone walking across your grave.

Without warning, the taller of the men suddenly lunged for the shorter man's throat, hands reaching for his windpipe, fingers clutching around it tightly as the heated discussion from before suddenly turned violent. The shorter man, considerably smaller than his opponent, reached weakly for the hands that choked him, fists tight around the muscled forearm of the aggressor.

They'd had an argument. A simple argument, over poker winnings. Others sometimes got violent, but Jimmy had known Paul for years, and never had anything ever indicated that he had this sort of…ferocity inside of him. Paul had been his best friend, his hunting partner, the best man at his wedding. What could incite a man so well-liked, so soft-spoken, to go off so suddenly on his closest friend?

Suddenly, Jimmy found himself on the ground, Paul on top of him, pinning him down against the cold cement. One hand still around his throat, there was a brief moment of respite before he saw Paul's fist come at his nose. A loud cracking sounded, and before he was aware of the pain he felt blood suddenly gush from the now broken nose, down his chin and into the collar of his shirt.

Without warning, Paul was beating his best friend senselessly, punch after punch aimed at every inch of his face, until he was beating nothing more than a bloody mess of skin and bone on the pavement. By then, of course, the poor man was long dead, passed out from the lack of air, choked to death by his best friend's fist.

Behind the thick glass of his living room window, War continued to smile on the scene before him, his strange crooked smile that was hinted with arrogance, with pride, reflected in the windowpane. He would watch the man kill his best friend until the early hours of the morning, when finally, Paul stood, covered in his friend's blood, and held his hands up to his face to take in the sight of his own bruised knuckles. War would watch as the realization crossed Paul's face, as he collapsed onto the sidewalk by Jimmy's body, shaking with sudden tears. Then, and only then, would he retreat from his spot by the window, back into the darkness of his empty apartment, the arrogant grin still etched on his handsome face.

Later, when taken in by the police, Paul would claim that he didn't know what came over him. That he had been taken unaware by some stronger, unexplained force, filling him with the desire to make Jimmy hurt, to kill him, to ground his skull into the pavement until he was covered in warm blood up to his elbows, and the air was filled with the pungent, iron scent of freshly-shed blood.

"Roger Casey" would be asked a few questions when he exited his apartment the next morning, of course. _How long had he been in town? Had he seen from his window what had incited the men to fight? Had he heard the argument? Had he spoken to either of the men earlier that day?_

He would feign ignorance, of course, politely answering the police chief with a reassuring smile that he, in fact, had been asleep during the brawl, but would promise to keep an eye out for any other strange behavior. He would make his way down the street, his hands resting in his jacket pocket as he fingered the smooth gold of the ring that would rain despair and bloodlust down on mankind.

The End certainly had begun.


End file.
